Month: November 2017

The 2017 Amelia Earhart Expedition was sponsored by TIGHAR (The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery) and National Geographic, and featured four forensic “historic human remains dogs” from the Institute for Canine Forensics. The 46-person team, including four members of The Explorers Club, and the four dogs searched sites on remote, uninhabited Nikumaroro island in the Republic of Kiribati. The team found various artifacts possibly related to the Amelia Earhart/Fred Noonan Lockheed Electra that disappeared in the South Pacific 80 years ago, in 1937. The team collected soil, coral and tree wood samples, hoping to extract DNA that would prove that Earhart died leaning up against a tree in the SE end of the island. The dogs had alerted on this site and 14 human bones and other evidence had previously been found there. The team also discovered what is apparently a previously unknown pre-contact Polynesian graveyard and village on the north side of the 4.5-mile-long island. The team’s hypothesis that Earhart died on Nikumaroro is in contrast with the recent controversial History Channel TV show which strongly contended that Earhart and Noonan were captured by the Japanese and died in the Marshall Islands, 1325 miles NW of Nikumaroro. That show has now been withdrawn from circulation, due to questions raised about the photograph that was the central linchpin of the program.